Where's Waldo?

"A mind might ponder its thought for an epoch, and not gain so much self-knowledge as the passion of love shall teach in a day".
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Bollocks.

Pondering provides far more helpful, solid, stable and long-lasting information about oneself, than Passion - which is fleeting, whimsical, and only serves to reinforce the self-knowledge we already use to boost our ego with. Everybody knows this.

And who is Ralph Waldo Emerson person anyway? They seem to love him here in America, but I always find his quotes to be terribly fluffy, self-important and annoying observations on the world. If you see him, shoot him.

In other news, today is August 14th and I'm back to wondering why the Pakistanis celebrate today as 'Independence Day' (jashn-e-azadi) instead of 'Birthday'. It's not like they existed before August 14th 1947, so they couldn't possibly be gaining independence from the British like we were. Pakistan had just been born, created, forged, thanks to the very brainy Mr. Jinnah and the assholic, pipe-smoking, Jolly-Ho'ing Brits. So where does the azadi element come in?

Still, I will avoid incurring the wrath of hundreds of Pakistanis I know and refrain from putting this question into my Facebook status, or discussing it face-to-face with any Pakistanis I know (my life is precious to me). I will simply continue pondering it quietly in my head and here on the xinu.geist which, I know, has a sympathetic (i.e. predominantly Indian) audience that will understand what I'm trying to say and not lynch me for raising this question.